The invention relates to an universal image processing device utilizing an electronic computer and particularly to an image memory device intended to be incorporated into a universal image processing device.
With development of the electronic computer, various attempts have been made to utilize the memory processing function of the computer for the image processing such as analyses of aerial photos and medical photos including a detection of cancer cells. In the conventional measures, however, the most appropriate image processing method has not been definitely concluded by a single algorithm other than the operator's judgement of the image in a trial and error way which usually requires an extremely extended processing time. On the other hand, because of two dimensional arrangement of the image data, the data overflows the capacity of the main memory unit of the electronic computer as the image to be processed is enlarged with requirement of an additional external memory device of greater capacity, for which reason the highly-integrated IC memory has recently been developed and supplied for commercial use and is used for the external memory device.
In the image processing device incorporating the IC memory unit, the random data access by the selected address data is usually performed by intercepting the image display or in either of the horizontal blanking period or vertical blanking period of the raster scanning for image display. The former method with interception of scanning, however, entails the inconvenience that the monitoring display is completely ceased during the transfer period of the great amount of data whereas the latter method utilizing the blanking period needs an extended transfer time.